Garrisons 101: What are Work Orders?
Most buildings in your garrison are capable of placing work orders. In simplest terms, a work order is exchanging one type of resource (such as ore or herbs) for a more valuable resource used for crafting (such as Gearspring Parts or Truesteel Ingots).
Work order basics
Work orders take basic materials such as herbs or ore and convert them into high quality crafting materials.
To start a work order, you interact with NPCs at your garrison buildings.
Work orders take 4 hours to complete each. You can queue up additional work orders so you don't have to babysit your garrison quite so often.
Level 1 buildings can queue up to 7 work orders.
Level 2 buildings can queue up to 14 work orders.
Level 3 buildings can queue up to 21 work orders.
The Storehouse building can increase your total queue of work orders by up to 15 more. With a level 3 Storehouse, you could queue up to 6 days of work orders without having to come back and start more.
Completed work orders must be picked up at the building they were placed (it will show up as a lootable crate, as seen in the image above).
Assigning a follower to a profession building (the follower must have a trait for that particular profession) has a chance to increase the yield of work orders. This follower is then unavailable for missions for the duration.
Work orders by building
This will show you the cost and output of each work order.
Profession buildings
Alchemy Lab: 5x Frostweed --> 1x Alchemical Catalyst
Enchanter's Study: 5x Draenic Dust --> 1x Fractured Temporal Crystal
Engineering Works: 2x True Iron Ore, 2x Blackrock Ore --> 1x Gearspring Parts
The Forge: 5x True Iron Ore --> 1x Truesteel Ingot
Gem Boutique: 5x Blackrock Ore --> 1x Taladite Crystal
Scribe's Quarters: 2x Cerulean Pigment --> 1x War Paints
The Tannery: 5x Raw Beast Hide --> 1x Burnished Leather
Tailoring Emporium: 5x Sumptuous Fur --> 1x Hexweave Cloth
All profession work orders also have a chance to contain Sorcerous Fire, Sorcerous Air, Sorcerous Earth, or Sorcerous Water which are additional crafting materials.
Other buildings
Dwarven Bunker / War Mill: 20x Garrison Resources --> Iron Horde Scraps, Weapon Enhancement Token, Armor Enhancement Token
Gladiator's Sanctum: 50x Broken Bones --> Item level 620 PvP gear
Lumber Mill: 10x Timber --> 20x Garrison Resources
Herb Garden: 5x Draenic Seeds --> Random Draenor herbs
Lunarfall Excavation / Frostwall Mines: 5x Draenic Stone --> Blackrock Ore, True Iron Ore
Trading Post: 5x random resource (changes daily) --> 20x Garrison Resources
Barn: Trap a beast out in the world, different byproduct based on type of beast
Capturing some elite beasts with a level 3 barn also rewards Savage Blood in addition to the above materials
Non-profession building work orders can also contain a random amount of Apexis Crystals. To learn more about what Apexis Crystals are used for, see this post.
Followers and work orders
Assigning a follower with a profession trait to a matching building will increase the yield of your work orders with that building. The higher the follower's level, the greater the bonus yield. It will also grant some unique bonuses. For example, with a Leatherworking trait follower assigned to The Tannery building, you'll be able to craft tents such as Elune's Retreat which increase your stats for an hour. Another example would be assigning a follower with the Herbalism trait to the Herb Garden, allowing you to choose which herbs to grow instead of random ones.
Some followers naturally come with a profession trait, and others can gain them randomly when they are upgraded to rare or epic quality. You can also recruit followers with specific traits using the Lunarfall Inn / Frostwall Tavern building.
Also be sure to check out WoW Insider's garrison follower guides.
